In October 2003, Pat Burns was evacuating neighborhoods threatened by the Old and Grand Prix fires when he got the call himself.

Burns, a San Antonio Heights resident, was a search-and-rescue volunteer and a reserve deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. When the fires broke out, he went to areas in San Bernardino and north Rancho Cucamonga to warn residents and encourage them to pack up and leave the area.

But when Burns got a call from his wife that their neighborhood was being evacuated because of the Grand Prix Fire he made the decision to go back to his home in the foothills and wait it out.

“Everyone was packing up and leaving except me and one other neighbor. We thought, we’re going to hang in there, we’re gonna do the manly thing,” said Burns, laughing. “The stupid thing.”

Burns and his wife Kathy packed up the important stuff — files and photographs — and turned the cars around so they were ready to leave if it came to that. Then they got out the hoses and waited.

“It’s a very strange feeling knowing that you could lose everything,” said his wife Kathy, who stayed behind with him.

As night fell, they saw an orange glow coming from behind the mountains, said Burns, who was 54 at the time. Then they heard what sounded like a train and felt the heat of the fire, even though it was still a half mile away.

They had previously made a deal — if the fire got down to a line of trees at Euclid and Mountain avenues, they would leave. But it never came to that.

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